Welcome on my website! I’m Professor of Economic, Social and Demographic History at Radboud University, the Netherlands. I head the Radboud Group for Family History and Historical Demography. I’m also an associate professor (Lektor and Docent) at the Centre for Economic Demography, Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden.
My research is about long-term changes in mortality and health, the changing disease environment, and social differences in health. I’m particularly interested in the question why some families are more healthy than others. I use linked historical and contemporary population registers to study mortality and health indicators like stature, reproductive health, morbidity, hospitalizations, and cause-specific mortality. In 2024, I received an ERC Starting Grant for my project “Relative Health”, on long-term developments in social inequalities in health and mortality in the Netherlands, Sweden, the US and elsewhere from a family perspective. I am also PI on the research project “An Age Old Advantage?” funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) on exceptionally healthy ageing in families in Sweden and the Netherlands and on the research project “Short-Lived Equality?” funded by Forte, about intergenerational dynamics of socioeconomic status and health.
You can find updates about my research and publications below.
News
2026-09-21: We’re hiring an Assistant Professor in Economic, Social and Demographic History at Radboud University. Closing date October 21st. The position is initially for one year but can be renewed as a permanent position. Please send the vacancy description to your network, and let me know if you have questions about the position.
2026-06-01: I’ve been appointed Professor in Economic, Social and Demographic History at Radboud University in the Netherlands. I will start September 1st. I’m very excited to return to Radboud University and work there with my colleagues on comparative questions about inequality in the long run.
2026-05-23 Kai Willführ and I have a new paper out in the History of the Family. We looked into whether women who had many children had higher mortality in advanced age. We found that they did – once we account for the possible help they received of adult, nearby-living children.
2026-april: I’m a bit behind with writing summaries of new papers on this website. Life has been a bit busy with managing research projects and a newborn at home. Anyway, the paper on intergenerational inequality in child mortality is now out in European Review of Economic History – and I wrote a blog summarizing the findings.
2026-04-26: In autumn, I’ll hire one or two doctoral students in my ERC-funded project “Relative Health”. Stay tuned for the vacancy descriptions.
2025-10-02: My paper “Inequality in Child Mortality Persists Between Generations in the Netherlands, 1835-1919” was accepted for publication in European Review of Economic History. I’ll write a summery of the findings soon; until then, take a look at the pre-print (linked under the title).
2025-09-01: My paper “Social differences in maternal mortality in Zeeland 1812 – 1913” was published in Historical Life Course Studies: link. The data and replication files are here. The paper is part of a very interesting special issue on histories of health. The special issue was released on the occasion of the retirement of Professor Angelique Janssens, who supervised my PhD thesis.
2025-08-20: My son Arthur Ejnar was born, and I will return to work in spring.
2025-06-01: Finn Hedefalk, Martin Dribe and I published our paper “Childhood neighborhoods and health in later Life: Hospital admissions in Sweden 1939–2015” in Social Science and Medicine. Link
2025-04-01: I’m hiring one or two doctoral students!
2025-03-31: New pre-print posted, which shows a social gradient in maternal mortality in the Netherlands 1812-1913. Link
2025-02-04: During the spring, I will hire two PhD candidates to start in autumn. Stay tuned for vacancies. One PhD candidate will work on long-term developments in health inequalities using register data, and one will work on comparative questions using survey data. We’re looking for economists, demographers, statisticians, epidemiologists or sociologists.
2024-11-27: FORTE (the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working life and Welfare) will fund the research project “Short-Lived Equality? Intergenerational persistence of survival and SES, Sweden 1850-today”. In the project, that will run 2025-28, I will study the dynamics of health and social mobility over the life course and between generations together with co-applicants Gabriel Brea Martinez and Luciana Quaranta.
2024-11-18: Two random bits. Bluesky is becoming more and more populated and a good alternative to the Bad Place. I try to post regularly on social differences in health, historical demography and other stuff that interests me so come and join us there. Unrelatedly, in mid-February, I’ll go to Umeå for a week and I’ll give a talk at CEDAR. I’m working with historical data they curate so it’s time to talk with the experts, and visit some of the research areas.
2024-11-13: During autumn, I posted two new pre-prints. One is with Niels van den Berg and is about family-shared advantage in survival in Sweden in an era that there was no general social gradient in mortality (before the 1960ies) until today. We find that during this whole period there were differences between families, though. In the second manuscript I show that in the Netherlands, during the demographic transition, intergenerational persistence in child mortality did not disappear.
2024-11-07: My colleague Jeanne Cilliers received funding from Vetenskapsrådet (the Swedish Research Council) for our project “Birthing Inequity: Legacies of Colonial Maternal Health and Child Welfare Services in Africa”. She will coordinate research together with Jutta Bolt and me on the long roots of contemporary health inequalities among children and their mothers in Africa.
2024-10-02 “Urban Lives. An Industrial City and Its People During the Twentieth Century” is coming out soon. My colleagues and I wrote about demographic developments in Landskrona since the early 20th century. The book, edited by Dribe, Nilsson and Tegunimataka, includes two chapters by me, on the topic of the health premium for married individuals (co-authored with Dribe) and medical changes and their benefits for mothers and children (co-authored with Lazuka and Quaranta).
2024-09-05: I’m the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant for my project “Relative Health: Long-Run Inequalities in Health and Survival Between Families and Across Generations”, on developments in social inequalities in health and mortality in the Netherlands, Sweden and the US. You can find out a bit more about the project here.
2024-03-06: Our paper was accepted in Social Science and Medicine. Luciana Quaranta, Therese Nilsson and I studied fertility outcomes of women exposed to peaking infant mortality, in indicator of high disease exposure, in their first year of life.
2023-10-25: New paper published in Health & Place with Finn Hedefalk and Martin Dribe, on the relation between childhood social neighborhoods and later-life cause-specific mortality. Find the paper here and a summary of the findings here.
2023-07-27: New paper published in Nature Communications with Niels van den Berg and colleagues, about how long-lived ancestors are related to healthy ageing and disease diagnoses in The Netherlands and Sweden. Find the paper here.
2023-05-02: I received the title of Docent (associate professor) at the Department of Economic History at Lund University.
2023-01-28: My daughter was born, and I will return to work in late spring.
2023-01-24: New paper published in Demography with Björn Quanjer and Matthias Rosenbaum-Feldbrugge, about living standard, stature and mortality among orphans in the Netherlands. Find the paper here, and a summary on Twitter here.
2022-12-01: I’ll give a plenary talk at the ESHD conference in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, August 30-September 2nd 2023.
2022-09-22: A short interview with me and my colleagues Björn Eriksson and Finn Hedefalk was published in the university magazine. We talk about knowledge transfer and research funding. We were all recipients of research funding in 2022. Find the interview here.